


One Last Moment

by rooneysrose



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 9/11, Alternate Universe - College/University, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Captain America Big Bang 2019 | cabigbang, F/F, F/M, Flashbacks, Grief, Happy Ending, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 15:45:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21255797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rooneysrose/pseuds/rooneysrose
Summary: It’s a cold January in 1998 when Steve Rogers rescues Bucky Barnes’ groceries from meeting an untimely death outside of a grocery store. After a night out, they become friends and fall in love along the way. One faithful September day, at their two year anniversary, Bucky has to go to work and never returns.In the months after, Steve’s reeling with grief. With Peggy at his side, he slowly learns how to forgive himself, how to deal, but mostly, how to fall in love again.





	1. PART ONE

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is finally. My entry for the captain america big bang, with art by the absolutely amazing [valjeanbo](https://valjeanbo.tumblr.com/) c: The art is embedded in the fic, but I urge you to go look and give her pieces some love, they're incredibly beautiful. Thank you so much for the wonderful collaboration! <3 
> 
> Also many thanks to my wonderful partner in crime and writing [d_claiborne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/d_claiborne/pseuds/d_claiborne) without whom this wouldn't be posted today. I love you <3

_My soul knew yours from the beginning._

## January

It was with great reluctance that Steve Rogers pulled the thermal underwear from the bottom of the closet. Winter hit Brooklyn hard; only weeks ago, he’d been out in a thick sweater and his leather jacket, but now even his thickest coat couldn’t keep the chill out.

Every year, he put it off as long as he could. Steve would layer up, wrap scarves around his neck and wear a thick cap on his head. He dreaded the uncomfortable itchy shirts and the way they clung a little too tight around his body. Hated how the pants rubbed under his jeans.

Every year, he had to admit defeat.

❅❅❅

The L train was beyond packed as Steve made his way to class that morning. He was amongst the people standing up, doing his best not to fall into others and stay upright. They swayed as the train sped up, almost in unison. 

He’d gotten used to the rhythm of morning rush in the past couple of months. College forced him to: it was either sink or swim. For the first weeks, he felt like an intruder amongst the tired businessmen and women. 

Soon, he became part of the crowd, pushing to get his way off of the carriage when he’d been pushed to the back of it. Steve was small enough to still fit in when they were pretty full. In the first weeks, he hadn’t dared to elbow his way out and missed his stop more than once. He’d lost count of how many times that he’d had to walk a couple blocks to get to where he wanted to go.

Now, Steve managed to force his way off easily. He no longer got lost in the crowd of people, nor did he pay attention to the offended faces of the people that he’d had to elbow to make room for him.

He was late. After missing his first train and then a delay of twelve minutes, he barely had any time to get to the building and get into the class before his professor would call him out on being late and refuse him to enter. He knew that, if he wanted to, he could get to class with about two minutes to spare.

Steve would have to run and try not to slip on the way inside. He knew that it would mean that he would be able to feel the sweat roll down his back and that his face would be a nasty tomato red. His clothes would get even more itchy.

He weighed his pros and cons. 

On the one hand, Steve had forced himself to put on his clothes this morning. When his alarm had woken him up this morning, his bed had been warm and inviting. The last thing he wanted to do was get up and face the cold. The second his bare feet - he was no monster who slept with socks, even in this cold - hit the wood in his studio, chills had run up his spine. If he’d gone through the effort of forcing himself out, if he’d put on the dreaded long underwear, he owed it to himself to actually go.

On the other hand, he could use the day off. Things had been _ go, go, go _ for too long now. Steve was tired. Today’s class was with a teacher he didn’t like and which he, quite honestly, didn’t care much for. If he was very honest, he didn’t think that it was worth being even more uncomfortable for.

In the end, it was an easy decision. He took the short walk to the grocery store about ten minutes down the street, grateful for the shelter from the wind. It had been a while since he’d been grocery shopping and had actual food in the house.

With all the late nights, and study days at the library, he’d grown used to picking up take out on his way back to his studio apartment. He could eat the second he got back and get to either work or to bed without much more time wasted.

Instead, he could treat himself. Steve could cook something fresh up and allow himself to enjoy it. He could have a cold beer - even if he was more in the mood for anything warm - and take the day off entirely. No work, just some _ me _ time.

During the summers, he loved going to the grocery store for the sole reason that it was nice and cool, and they were air-conditioned. He’d bought his studio with the money he inherited after his mother passed away. He’d used a lot of it on the flat and university, put the rest away for savings. He couldn’t afford to dip into them to buy air conditioning. Instead, during the summers, he’d go out even in the sweltering heat. Even if he needed nothing but a couple of apples or something cool to drink.

At the moment, Steve was mostly glad for the lack of wind and the fact that inside the cold didn’t cut through his gloves and didn’t make his fingers tingle. It almost felt as if they were useless against the cold outside. 

It was quiet inside, the store having just opened a half an hour ago. Most of the people were like him: they were on their way to work or school and didn’t have time to go shopping right now. Others - which he envied - were still safe and sound in bed, dreaming of warmer days.

Two employees, somehow awake and bright, chatting to each other cheerfully about children. He tried not to listen in on their conversation, but with the shop dead quiet, it was hard to do just that.

There was a guy with a shopping basket just ahead of him. He seemed to be picking up frozen meals, staring into the big chunky freezers as if he’d find the answer to life in them.

Steve allowed himself to have a look at the guy and take him in: he had long brown hair pulled back in a bun, the hair at the nape of his neck neatly shaven back. His jaw strong, a slight stubble running across it. His cheeks were slightly red from the biting cold outside. His eyes were focussed on the two meals in his hands, almost as if it were a life or death matter. 

He didn’t allow himself to look at boys the same way he did with girls. Girls were safe. He could look at them, the curves of their body and take in their smiles - the way their faces lit up from something as simple as a smile.. People didn’t bat an eye when he looked at girls. It’s not strange, or weird, or _ queer _. 

If he looked at a boy in the same way, with longing eyes, wanting to take him out for a dance, wanting to kiss him, even just wanting to hold a boy’s hand, the world wasn’t as kind to him. He knew that he needed to be careful, that people were watching. 

Steve was barely aware that he was still staring at the guy, a bag of frozen peas in his hand that he barely knew he’d picked up. The man crossed his eyes and smiles at him, almost as if he knew what he was thinking - as if he was in on the secret.

Steve hated it.

Steve quickly averted his eyes and looked at the peas again. He put them in his shopping basket, next to the peppers he’d grabbed earlier and slid the freezer door shut. His eyes were firmly glued on his own hands, the products in the freezers next to it and later at the ground under his feet as he moved on to meats.

He didn’t even want the peas. Knew that he’d buy them and put them away in the very back of his tiny freezer compartment. He didn’t want to go back and risk bumping into the guy again. Meet those gorgeous blue eyes again and know that he was aware that Steve was staring at him.

Steve buttoned his wool coat, grocery bags slowly digging into this gloved hands. He’d opened it when his body had gotten used to the temperature inside and it had actually started to feel nice. He didn’t appreciate the biting cold. It almost felt harsher now he’d been inside, as if it had dropped ten degrees in a matter of minutes.

Steve had decided to splurge a little bit. He’d picked up a couple of beers, some hot chocolate mix, along with food for a couple days. He would probably end up cooking most of it tonight, so he could just heat them up instead of having to make dinner after a long day of classes. If he let it come to that, Steve knew that he’d have to throw most of his groceries out.

He waited outside for a little bit, leant against the windows of the store. Steve was toying with his Discman, trying to get it to accept the cd he’d put in. _ Letting Off the Happiness _blasted through his headphones as he frantically fumbled with the volume slider.

Steve hated when that happened. Somehow, he always ended up with his volume on 100% when taking it out of his bag, but only on the most frustrating moments: in a quiet lecture, in the library or any moment that he decided to put his headphones on his ears before pressing play.

He slipped it in the front of his leather satchel, securely buckling it back up again. The bag had been his father’s, a long time ago; Steve still remembered his father going out to the base for work, pressing a kiss to the top of his head and hugging his mother close. What he remembered most was the smell of his cologne and the fresh smell of leather. It had been a Christmas present from his mother before his dad’s first deployment, and Steve figured that’s why he loved it so much, why he wore it down so quick. Why Steve too had taken it on as a companion: a piece of his parents that he’d always have with him, that he could carry with him; a part that would never go away. 

With the music at a comfortable volume, he adjusted his headphones so he could still hear the sounds of the cars and chatter of the people around him. In his head, he could hear his mother scolding him, as she’d always had when he took a discman out with him, “You’re gonna get yourself killed! Someone could be yelling at you to stop and you wouldn’t hear anything. A _ bomb _ could explode next to you and you wouldn’t hear it.” He’d always told her that she was overreacting, but at the end of the day, whenever he went out, he listened to her.

Steve was almost past the grocery store when he heard the yelp. He barely had time to turn around before he saw an apple roll by on the ground. It rolled onto the road, almost immediately turned into applesauce on the road. A bottle of beer landed right in front of his feet.

He almost immediately recognised the guy he’d been looking at in the store. He was crouched on the ground, trying to gather his groceries from the floor as people carefully walked around him.

Steve picked up the beer, as well as a box of Fruit Loops that had made a surprising distance from the place where he’d slipped and pulled his headphones off. He could still faintly hear the song playing in the distance.

“These seem to have escaped,” he said, reaching them both out for the man to take. He allowed himself to take in the guy once more, promising himself that he only wanted to make sure that he was okay. That’s _ all. _ The only motive that Steve could ever have. It wasn’t in the slightest because he wanted to see him from up close. “Are you okay?”

“My tailbone will never be the same,” he answered grimly. “Thanks.”

“Of course. I’m afraid I was too late to rescue an apple from getting trampled,” Steve said, almost sheepishly. From closer by, the guy was even more handsome. If he wasn’t careful, he could keep staring at him, just taking him in. As if he was taking a picture, a face to remember so he could sit down at this desk later and draw him. Try and capture his features, while knowing he would never be able to do that.

“I’ll make sure to mourn it when I’m cutting up its siblings,” the guy said, making Steve laugh. “James.” He stretched out his hand and shook Steve’s, his hand surprisingly warm and firm in his. “I saw you looking in the shop.”

“I’m sure they’ll appreciate that a lot,” Steve answered, unable to keep the smile off his lips. “Steve. Nice to meet you James.” He felt his cheeks grow a little red. “I was just staring; haven’t been up for that long.”

“How about I take you out for a thank you beer?” James offered, a knowing expression on his face. “A bribe for you to forget that you saw a random stranger fall on his ass in the middle of the road. I’ll forget you were staring at my handsome mug. Deal?”

“Sounds good to me,” he answered, before he could allow his brain to think about what he was saying. “You got yourself a deal.” Steve was glad for the biting cold and the fact that it made his cheeks already red. He knew that if not, he’d be blushing.

“Tomorrow, seven PM? Let’s meet up here.” 

“Sounds like a plan.”

Steve didn’t allow himself to think about the meeting until after he made lunch for himself. He sat in bed with the duvet pulled around his legs and a bowl of soup in his lap. The memories of this morning kept playing in his head, over and over and over again.

_ And I’ll forget that you were staring at the store. _

It would just be a casual night out with him, have a beer, feel awkward for probably the entire evening. It would probably be that and no more than that.

Something in Steve wanted James to like him. He wanted to impress him, look nice for him. Treat it as a date. It was a crazy thing to assume, a dangerous thing to let his heart run free with. James had just invited him for a beer because he wanted to thank him for helping him out and that was it. No ulterior motives.

Just a beer.

Nothing else.

❅❅❅

Peggy was lying on his bed, feet in the air and head in her hands, laughing at Steve. He stood in front of his closet, looking at his shirts for what felt like the thousandth time in that past hour. He knew that he was gonna wear his sole pair of thicker, black jeans, but had no clue what to wear on top of it.

“You’re like a girl on a first date,” she scolded him. “Honestly, you’re worse than me and I go through all of my dresses twice.”

“Can you just tell me what you think about this shirt?” He didn’t know what to wear. Nothing felt quite right: some things felt too fancy, others were too casual. The weather wasn’t helping him either, because as much as he knew that he needed to dress warmly, he also knew that he would be hot the second he had a couple of beers in him.

“I like it,” she mused. “You look good in it, if anything.” Peggy looked him up and down for a second. “If he was a she, she would eat you right up.” She winked at him. “I think you’re good for meeting a friend.”

“But what,” Steve mumbled, heart racing in his chest, “if I also want him to eat me right up?” He didn’t know when he’d made the decision to come out to her, and why it was now that he’d made it. He was nervous as is about meeting up with James; He didn’t need the added pressure of not knowing how she would react. “Her too. But. Him too.”

She just stared at him for a while, not saying anything. Her mouth open just a little bit, as if she was taking in what he just told her. He couldn’t blame her for that. It had taken a long time for him to get used to the thought himself.

“Kinda like me,” she said carefully. “I don’t just wear the red lipstick for the boys.” She smiled at him then, comfortingly. “Come here.” She got up off of the bed and pulled him into a hug. “He’s gonna eat you up in this.”

“It’s not a date,” he admits. “I know it’s not. But still.” Steve wanted to impress him, look nice for him. Wanted to spend time with him. He knew damn well how dumb it might be,

“You want it to be, don’t you?”

“I know it sounds crazy, we only saw each other for like five minutes, but. Yeah. I do.”

“Well, _ if _he’s into guys,” she said, looking from his shoes to the top of his head, “he’s not gonna be able to resist you. Go get him.”

Steve was twenty minutes early, somehow. By the time Peggy left, Steve had been scared that he would miss his train, so he’d speedwalked to the station, only to figure out that he’d made it to an earlier one.

The train had been quiet and Steve had been able to sit down and read for a change. He’d grabbed his satchel and stuffed the book in on a whim. Every time he glanced at the page, the words seem to swim before his eyes and the anxiety kicked in.

What if he missed his stop? What if he’d be late? What if he’d been so caught up in his book that he didn’t notice until the final stop and then Bucky would have already left? 

There were too many question marks in Steve’s brain. They didn’t make sense at all, and yet, he knew very well that the last time he’d gotten lost in a book and forgotten about the world around with was over ten year years ago and that he’d read plenty on the train without missing his stop.

The chance that he now, would get so lost in Sabriel, of all things, was essentially zero.

Yet here he was, twenty minutes early and leant against the storefront. It had occurred to Steve earlier, when Peggy asked him where they would be meeting, that he had not a single clue. They’d never explicitly said and he could hardly call James and ask him.

On good faith, he’d walked to the spot they met and hoped, prayed that this was what he’d wanted. Worst that could happen was that it wasn’t or that James had decided that he didn’t want to meet him after all.

“Hey, you’re here.” James was walking up to him, thick scarf wrapped around his neck. He had a different coat on - thicker, but the same jeans, the same shoes, she same gentle expression on his face. “Didn’t know if I’d see you here.”

“You offered me free beer,” he joked, his heart beating in his chest. He shouldn’t be nervous. It was just a night out, with a stranger who had the possibility of becoming a friend. “Have you ever heard of a student turning down free booze?”

“Well, no. You’re only here for the booze then?” _ And maybe for the guy with the gorgeous eyes. _“I get it.”

“Where do you want to go?” Steve asked, not wanting the conversation to turn awkward. “Is it far?”

“Follow me.”

The bar was busy, the only table free a spot in the very back. Steve forced his way through, claiming the spot before anyone else could while James went to order their beers. He knew very well, with a place this busy crowd, it could take a while for him to return.

It was actually going well so far. They’d talked about the weather - unavoidable when the temperatures were a steady freezing - and what brought them to New York, joked back and forth. It had felt relaxed, nice, almost as if they’d known each other longer than just the twenty minutes they’d spent together.

James was back earlier than Steve expected, two beers in his hands.

“Well, here you go, saviour of my Fruit Loops.”

“Thank you,” Steve said with a small smile on his lips, glad for the beer. The first sips warmed his stomach, let it slowly spread through his veins until his frozen fingers felt alive again. For a second, standing in the cold earlier, he thought they never would.

“You know, it’s weird,” James said, fingers circling the rim of the glass. “Usually I either hang out with Natasha or with the art kids. I have no clue what guys talk about.”

“I don’t really know either,” Steve shrugged. “Peggy usually is my only company.” And it wasn’t like they went out to pubs to get drunk or hang out. If anything, he and Peggy made a habit of staying in and having dinner while watching a movie. After a year, they’d cycled through most of the VHS tapes in Steve’s studio, but it didn’t mean that they didn’t cycle back to the first, or rented movies. “I’m an art kid.”

“Really?” A surprised expression crossed James’s face. “You don’t seem the type.”

“I’m sorry to say I am. Kind of. I draw,” Steve admitted, “it’s not my major but. What about you?”

“Photographer,” he said, pointing at the bag across his shoulders. Steve had noticed that even though he took his coat off - revealing a thin, blue sweater underneath - he didn’t remove the strap from his shoulder. “Wherever I go, the camera goes.”

“Don’t wanna miss a moment?” 

“Not a single one,” he confirmed. “Like this one.” James pulled out a small camera from the bag, taking the lens cap off and looking through the viewfinder with the concentration of a cat hunting its prey. Steve’s first instinct was to duck away, but he knew damn well, from all the time he spent with Peggy, how pointless it would be. “Thank you.”

“I am hoping I’ll never have to see it,” Steve confided in him. “Peggy is notorious for taking seven more if I duck away even once, so I’ve learned my lesson.”

“Peggy?” he asked, curiously. “Is she also a student?” Steve just nodded in reply, curious. “Not little Peggy Carter?”

“I wouldn’t call her little in front of her face,” he advised, taking a sip of his beer to prevent a laughing fit. “But yes, that’s the one, you know her?”

“She’s in my class,” he said. “Has she never mentioned me? I’m hurt.” James clutched at his heart in much hurt. “So wait, you’re Peggy’s Steve?”

“Never mentioned anyone named James,” Steve answered. “I am sorry to say.” He was amused by the whole thing. If Peggy had thought that he was set out to meet someone she knew, she’d have told her. She’d have gushed over it and told him precisely what to do and what to not do. He vividly remembered the one time she’d tried to set him up with a date. How she’d shown up beforehand to make sure that he looked handsome enough for her friend. Tucking his shirt in his pants, she’d glanced him over and told him that if he wanted to meet up with one of hers, he needed to be worth it, presentable.

“Probably because it’s Bucky,” Bucky corrected, “Bucky to all of my friends.” That suddenly made a lot more sense. He’d heard that name more than once, angrily spit out when he’d placed before her in whatever assignment that they had going on, especially if they had to work together.

“So you’re the smart ass,” Steve said with a small smile. “About you, I have heard plenty. But you write good papers...or so I’ve been told.”

“I hate to say it, but she is the smart ass. _ Always _ needs to have the last word, can never ever humor me for even a little bit. Like, five minutes is all that I ask for.” Bucky grinned now too. “But I do, thank you very much. I’m gonna thank her for the good review.”

Somehow, Peggy became their gateway to conversation. As the beers and hours ticked by, they became more and more comfortable around each other. They leant against each other on the train back, the swaying almost too much for Steve’s dizzy brain.

Every time he closed his eyes, the world swerved dangerously around him. It had been a while since he’d been so happily and comfortably drunk. It felt good, around Bucky. They felt comfortable, even if it could be the alcohol speaking. A steady _ ‘a boy is bringing you home and you could kiss him _’ resounded in his head, echoed in the seemingly empty space.

“This is mine,” Steve said as his stop was announced, “I don’t live too far. You don’t have to take me.”

“I promised I’d get you home,” Bucky said with a grin, pulling him off the carriage with him when the doors slid open. “Lead the way.”

Steve loved the streets at night. He was far enough away from bars not to get a slough of drunken yelling and throwing up, there rarely was a brawl and even when something happened, it got resolved quickly and quietly.

It was just him, the dark streets and the quiet. It gave him time to think. Thankfully, today, it sobered him up just enough to silence his brain. He couldn’t kiss him, not just out of the blue.

Even though it was ridiculous, Bucky almost felt like a friend. He knew that they’d only known each other for a couple of hours, but it almost felt like he’d known him longer. They’d talked openly and freely and somehow, he’d felt _ comfortable _ around this complete stranger. More comfortable than he’d felt around his classmates, even though he’d been with some of them for years now.

Bucky’s arm felt warm around his shoulders. Steve allowed himself to forget that it was there told both of them steady and allowed himself to think it was there voluntarily. That Bucky wanted it to be there.

“This is me,” he said, pointing at the apartment complex on the right, “number seven.” Number seven thankfully didn’t mean that he was on the seventh floor, as he’d feared when he’d read the listing in a newspaper, a couple of months after his parents died. “Do you wanna come in for a little while?”

“I should get home,” Bucky said, and for a moment, something inside his chest shattered. Maybe he was dumb to think it had been nice; maybe Steve was just a naive guy who didn’t know how to read the signs. “I have class in -” he glanced at his watch, wincing at the time it read, “well, five hours and I should go get some sleep.”

“Of course,” he said, trying not to show his disappointment. He wanted to offer that he could stay at his place, sleep it off. “Do you have to go far?”

“Just two blocks, it’s okay.” He pointed back the way they had come. “Shouldn’t take me more than ten minutes to be home and zoned out in bed.”

“I’m glad.” Steve played with the keys in his hands, awkward now. He didn’t know how to say goodbye, didn’t know how to say that it was nice and that he hoped they could hang out. Not without making it sound like they’d just been on a date.

“Maybe next time?” Bucky asked. “I can come pick you up?”

“Yes,” Steve said, smiling. “That would be nice. If you want-” He stopped himself, biting his lip. He was taking too many liberties. “I don’t have class until three PM, if you want to grab breakfast or lunch?”

“I’ll come knocking at the door. Good night, Steve Rogers.” He saluted with his imaginary hat, making a little bow. He was a little unsteady, but somehow managed to stay upright.

“Good night Bucky.”

Steve allowed himself to look until he was out of sight, before unlocking the door and braving the steps to the third floor, dreaming of the comfort of his bed and the temptation of sleep.

❤❤❤

##  **February**

Steve was almost expecting Bucky to ring the bell the next morning, wake him up from his sleep and make his head pound. Instead, it stayed quiet. There was no Bucky hanging on his doorbell, he didn’t show up to taunt him or laugh at Steve. Not even to share the misery of their hangovers with each other.

Steve had wanted him to; being with him had made him feel almost happy, made his heart feel warm again. It had been a while since he’d felt so comfortable with another human being and it had happened so quickly.

Bucky had brought his defences down. Steve didn’t quite know how he had done it, but somehow, he had. He found himself thinking about Bucky during the day - eyeing to see if he was on the same train as him, walking in the same group as him.

He never seemed to be there. No matter when he looked.

❅❅❅

They had a couple of brief run-ins, talking to each other on the train on their way to respective places, saying goodbye in the busy commute. They talked about university and how their schedules were killer, how they both had so much work to do. Assignments that made zero sense, library research Steve hated doing.

School got crazy, with papers due and long essays to write. Steve didn’t know when January ended and rolled into February, if only for the way he split his time. He worked on the weekends with a small print newspaper and during the weeks he wrote and studied and wrote. Except for his desk, the library became his most frequented place, usually with an open book next to him.

By the end of it, Steve was exhausted. His essays were handed in and his paycheck came in. It had been the only reason he even realised that it had gotten to February.

His job wasn’t anything special, but it helped him out financially and in a weird way it was fulfilling. Steve was a glorified assistant at best - brought paperwork to the right desks, copied things for the people too lazy to get off their chairs and made sure they never went into caffeine withdrawal.

It was well into February by now, winter keeping it’s iron hold on New York. Steve dreamt of the days of warm weather and sun, without snow on the roads and without neverending delays on the train lines.

Steve had been stranded in the station coming back from work for half an hour, staring at the graffiti on the wall opposite him. It felt as if he’d been at it for seven years, as if he hadn’t moved since the dawn of time. 

The crowd had grown thicker and busier, louder as people grunted in unison at an additional five minutes delay. Three trains were supposed to show up in the time between him arriving and now, and two of them had been so full that no one was allowed on.

Worst of all, halfway through waiting, the battery to his Discman had died and his only form of entertainment had been taken from him. He couldn’t pull out the book he was reading in the station and he knew damn well that he wouldn’t be able on the train either.

“Is this seat taken?” A familiar voice pulled Steve out of his exhausted stare. 

“Considering that there is no seat, go for it,” he said, turning around to see Bucky standing against the wall, a small smile on his face. 

“I’ll take it anyway.” He was oddly cheerful to Steve’s exhausted brain. “You look like you just came back from the war.”

“Very funny, Buck.” He’d had enough yelling and throwing and angry phone calls for the day, all thanks to his co-workers and their pre-holiday temper. “Does Valentine’s Day count as war?”

“Maybe. Is Peggy giving you trouble?” The question almost confused Steve. Peggy? It had to be obvious in his face, because Bucky pulled up an eyebrow questioningly. “You’re not dating?”

“God, no.” He loved Peggy. He really, truly did. But not in that way. “Don’t get me wrong, we’re really good friends, but...”

“Noted. I thought with the way she’s been speaking about you, maybe.”

“Not at all. I picked up a job at a local newspaper and everyone is stressing over what to get for their wives.” Steve had had to listen to uncreative generic idea after uncreative, generic idea. “They all think because I’m young I have better gift ideas than them. Which won’t go past flowers and chocolate, so I guess I do.”

Some of his coworkers had seemed to flat out resent having to spend the day with their wifes or partners, complaining about having to stay in and watch a movie or enjoy the evening. He had wanted to smack each and every one of them in the face. It wasn’t right.

“I feel for their wives,” Bucky laughed silently, He passed a hot cup of something his way. Hesitantly, Steve took it. It felt heavenly between his frozen hands. Even though he’d been handing coffee all day, he was grateful for it. “Here, my Valentine’s Day present for you.”

“Why thank you.” Steve ignored the jump his heart made at the suggestion. “This is so much needed, thank you.” Despite supplying his co-workers with coffee, Steve hadn’t had a single drop of it himself - he’d been too lazy to wait for it to cool down and too busy to take his time on it. “I had a thermos, but it’s at work.” 

It was standing on his desk, filled to the brink with warm and comforting coffee. Tomorrow morning, it would be cold and bitter and undrinkable, not even when microwaved. There weren’t a lot of people that showed up on Sundays and he suspected it would be even less with it being a holiday.

“You looked like you could use it.” Bucky shook his head. “Now tell me, how will you be spending your Valentine’s Day?”

“Working, then going to bed and ignoring it’s a holiday in the first place. What about you?”

“Well, I won’t be working and I’m free all day.”

A train finally thundered in the station after forty minutes. Despite it already being crowded, Bucky and Steve squeezed their way on. The thundering was too loud for conversation and by the time they got off to walk home, both of them had gotten used to the comfortable silence between them.

“Go take a nap,” Bucky finally told him when they got to Steve’s studio. “You can use it.”

“Will do, Mom,” he joked. “See you later? It was nice bumping into you,”

“It was,” he admitted. “See you later, Steve.”

❅❅❅

Having to work in the office on Valentine’s Day didn’t bring him the release he wanted. He’d hoped that it being on a Sunday meant that he didn’t have to talk to people or explain that he didn’t have a partner.

Instead, people repeatedly told him how lucky he was and how they’d escaped to the office with fake notice that there was a problem with the print.

“I can’t believe Maria bought it,” Howard said, his feet pulled up on his desk. It was clear that he’d been happy with his victory over the holiday. “She got her present early this year.” He winked at Steve, almost as if saying _ you know what I mean with that. _ Steve almost wished that he didn’t know. 

“She’s used to you being gone by now,” Abraham supplied. He was the only one in the office who actually had to be there. Ironic as it was, there had been a small problem in the print. He’d stomped in, thrown his coat on the hanger and gone to his desk to make the calls he needed to make. “Greta is going to kill me if I don’t get back in an hour.”

His desperation had been clear in the many phone calls he’d made to people unavailable because it was the weekend. Steve felt sorry for him. He was almost grateful there was no one waiting for him at home, ready to be disappointed when it turned out he had to stay longer because they didn’t want to leave.

“What are your plans for today, Steve?” Howard asked, a mischievous grin on his lips. “Do you also have a girlfriend waiting for you at home? Did you escape too?”

“No plans,” he said. “The only thing I have waiting for me at home is a nap.” Which was true. From the moment he’d forced himself out of the bed and into clothes, he’d promised himself he’d get off work, come back and just go back to sleep until the evening.

“A chap like you without a girl?”

“Yeah.”

“Aren’t you going hunting then?” The word hunt made his skin crawl. “There’ll be plenty girls out for a drink tonight sad because they’re alone. _ Someone _ needs to comfort them.” Someone that wasn’t him. “They’ll thank you for it.”

“That’s not for me.” Which is true, it wasn’t. He’d never been for one night stands or sleeping with girls just fort the fun of it. He didn’t get anything out of that. Besides, if there was anyone he wanted to be out with tonight it was Bucky, not that he’d ever say that out loud. Not to them at least.

He let himself imagine meeting Bucky like that - alone in a bar on Valentines day. Being able to flirt openly and talk to him. Buy him a drink and get to know him. Take him home. Kiss him and be surprised at the passionate kiss back. Making out lazily on the couch and then moving to the bed.

“You’d want to though,”Howard barked a laugh. Steve knew his cheeks were burning. All he wanted to do was to go hide in the bathroom and splash water in his face - force himself to calm down. It was dangerous, to let his mind run with things.

“No. I’m sorry, I should copy these papers so they can go into the mailboxes tomorrow morning.” He’d never speed walked out of the office faster than that morning. 

By the time five PM rolled around, the office was empty and he could finally lock things up. Steve had been glad to see people leave - happy for Erskine that he got to go home to his wife before he’d promised her to be home. 

He’d just pulled the door closed behind him and was locking up when he felt a tap on his shoulder. Confused, he tucked his keys in his bag and turned around. Bucky was standing there, looking at him almost nervously.

It intrigued him. Steve didn’t even remember telling him where he worked, but he must have as they’d walked back the previous day.

“I was just about to ring the bell,” he admitted. “But then you walked out.”

“Good timing, I’m just leaving,” Steve said, repositioning his bag on his shoulder. “Walk with me?”

“Actually, that’s the question. You know there’s the skating rink in Brooklyn Park?” Bucky was beaming. “I know it’s going to be busy, but there’s nothing as bad as celebrating Valentine’s Day alone when you could be ice skating with a friend. You in?”

“I guess? I’ve never done that before.” If it had been anyone else, he’d have said no. The last thing he wanted to do was embarrass himself in front of a group of people by falling on his ass. He could already feel the bruises on his hips from where he would undoubtedly fall. But it meant that he could trick his brain that he was on a date with Bucky. He could trick it into thinking that they were actually together and spending time because that’s what they wanted to do.

“I’ll teach you,” Bucky promised.

“Lead the way,” Steve simply said in return.

❅❅❅

It was just before six by the time they finally laced up their skates. The walk had been comfortable, nice even. He’d told Bucky about the pigs at the office and Bucky had turned his nose up in agreement. They’d talked about school and Peggy, about life and music, books.

“I’ll pay,” Steve said, pushing Bucky to the side at the till. He handed the girl a fiver - enough for the rental of the skates - and let Bucky lead them inside of the rink. Steve ignored the look that the girl threw them - questioning and curious - and instead focussed on the surroundings. 

The drinking stalls were buzzing, people happy about the warm alcohol on the cold day. Many people had wet spots on their jeans, where they’d fallen on the ice. Kids were red in the face, happily drinking hot chocolate and dipping their waffles. Steve was almost jealous of them.

They sat down on one of the benches, switching to thick socks and the skates. Bucky was quiet as he did this, focussing on the untying of the white laces.

“Do you mind it? Being alone on Valentine’s Day?” he suddenly asked. He seemed focussed on lacing up the boot, but Steve knew he just didn’t want to focus on what he’d just asked. 

“Maybe a little,” Steve admitted. He didn’t know why he was even saying this. “This year is nicer, though;I get to spend it with a friend.” Steve ignored the pang in his own heart at the word friend. “Do you?”

“I do,” Bucky said, avoiding Steve’s eyes. “I miss being together with someone. Sometimes, I want someone to get back to at the end of the day.”

“I just want what my parents had, you know,” Steve admitted as he walked to the ice with Bucky. Buckly went first, sliding on as if he was an expert. He seemed so steady - so graceful that for a second he could only stare.

“Hold on to me,” Bucky offered, holding out a hand to Steve. “Were they good together?”

Steve’s confidence was at an all time low. Despite having tightened the laces as much as he could, they still felt incredibly unsteady under his feet. He knew that once he got on the slippery surface of the ice, he’d fall to his face within minutes.

With one hand firm on the side and one hand in a death grip on Bucky’s, he carefully put one foot and then a second on the ice. For a second there was the fake confidence of _ ‘I can do this, this isn’t so bad’ _, before his body realised just how different keeping yourself upright on the ice was.

“I was young,” Steve admitted, “but as I remember, they loved each other.” His father made his mother breakfast in bed for every anniversary, took her out to dinners, got a babysitter every month for a date night. He called whenever he promised to call and made sure to be home twenty minutes before he’d promised to be there - as a happy surprise. He picked Steve up from school whenever he could, so his mother didn’t have to leave her shift early to get him. “He would’ve moved the earth for my mom.”

He refused to let go of the edge as Bucky calmly skated next to him. The edge of the rink was his safety - as long as he stayed there, he could keep himself upright. It would be fine as long as he held on.

“Try,” Bucky prompted, a slight pull on his hand. “What happened?”

Despite his head yelling at him not to let go of the safety, he let Bucky take him and guide him. No training wheels, no nothing. Just Bucky holding his hand and pulling him forwards.

“The war happened.” He’d left in a green uniform and soldiers in blue suits knocked on the door one morning instead. An american flag and a medal of honor was all they had from him.

“I’m sorry.” They had come to a standstill by the opposite edge. Steve was barely aware he’d already skated half a round and that he somehow, hadn’t fallen over. “That must suck. How old were you?”

“Fourteen. It’s strange; it didn’t hit me as much. He’d already been gone for so long - sometimes it felt like he wouldn’t be coming back even when he was alive.”

Bucky pulled them back onto the ice, going faster this time. Steve almost felt as he was flying as his companion pulled him to loops and turns and they zoomed across the ice. For a moment, he forgot Bucky never answered him or that they were talking about his parents on a day like Valentine’s. For a moment, he felt completely free.

It was that moment, in that freedom, that he went sliding and landed with all of his body weight straight onto his hip. He barely knew how it happened, he just knew that one moment he was up and the other he was on the ice, Bucky landing him a hand and getting him back on his feet. 

“Are you okay?” Bucky looked worried as he asked his, Steve still not having come to terms himself what just happened.

“Fine,” he promised. His hip felt sore. He was almost sure that he’d wake up the next morning with a giant bruise. “I’ll survive.”

“Let’s get off,” Bucky said, steering him back to the edge and the gate holding it closed. “I don’t want-”

“You love it,” Steve interjected. “I’ll sit my aching ass down by the edge, you show off.” He resisted winking at him, even though he wanted to. “Have fun.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll have fun watching.”

It was another hour until they left. Bucky was graceful on skates, with his smooth turns and as the rink emptied out, ever faster speed. There was a story there, he was sure of it. 

Steve didn’t care who else was on the rink, the only one he could pay attention to was Bucky. Bucky with his slim legs and beautifully tousled hair, seemed like he was floating on the ice.

He barely realised that Bucky was looking at him as he got off, a small smile on his lips. It lit up his face, made him glow. His cheeks were red from frostbite and the exercise - it made him almost look like the excited kids drinking their hot chocolate.

“Can I buy you a drink?” Bucky asked after returning his skates and putting his shoes back on. “On me.”

“Maybe we could go to my place?” Steve asked sheepishly. “I have everything ready for dinner at home, we could make something together.”

“That sounds like a -” Bucky cut himself short, the red on his cheeks going just a bit brighter. “That sounds nice.”

❅❅❅

They fell into a nice arrangement.

Once they’d gotten to his place, Steve and Bucky had split up the tasks. While Steve cleaned the potatoes - a job that took him back to sitting in his mother's kitchen and helping her peel potatoes for their church potlucks - Bucky took the meat out to get to room temperature and turned on the stove to fry it.

It took half an hour for them to cook, but they had fun. Steve was almost surprised at how nice it felt, cooking for someone, cooking _ with _ someone. It had been a while since anyone else but Peggy had been in his studio and she preferred not to help. She’d always say that she didn’t care if she was a woman, she’d cut off a finger if she as much as tried to peel potatoes or cut vegetables.

They got busy while they worked, talked and talked and talked.

“What about your parents?” Steve eventually asked, sitting on the kitchen counter as Bucky put the dishes in the sink. On the stove, a pot of hot chocolate was bubbling, almost ready for them to drink it. “What were they like?”

He had insisted to help, but Bucky has shooed him away with a gesture, told him to let him help. Even with the chocolate milk, Bucky had told him not to. He was perfectly capable of melting chocolate in milk and letting it simmer.

“They were okay I guess,” Bucky shrugged. “Where are your mugs?”

“On the cupboard to your right, pick whichever. What does okay mean?”

“I don’t see them as the model parents,” he sighed. It was almost palpable just how much there was under the surface. Steve could tell that there was more that he didn’t want to tell him. More that he didn’t want to open up about. “They were good together but then things changed. We had a big argument. I left. I haven’t seen them nice nor have I wanted to see them.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve answered, not sure how else to react. “Must have been left if you left over it.

“Let’s say they had some very firm beliefs of how I was allowed to behave and what was proper for me to do. They don’t own me, I’m not their boy to mold into whoever they want.” The skin on his knuckles went white as he clasped it around the mug, filling both mugs with the hot chocolate. “I’m glad yours were nice, I’m sorry you lost your father.”

They settled on the couch, both holding their hot cups in their cold hands. It was almost comfortable, sitting there like this, as if it had always been that way.

“I lost both of them,” Steve said quietly. “My mom died when I was nineteen - she suddenly collapsed at work and stopped breathing.” He still remembered very vividly how the cops had knocked on the door and asked if they could come in. No medals of honour, no American flag. Just the words ‘_ we’re really sorry son _’. “Though I get it and I’m sorry you lost yours, too, in a way.”

They sat in silence for a while, both sipping their too hot drinks. At some point, Steve turned on the television and they watched a tv movie, silent except for the occasional remark about what was happening.

If their silence hadn’t felt so comfortable, he’d have been worried. He’d have been sure that he’d shared too much, that it hadn’t been okay to ask. Watching television had been nice. It almost felt like this was their normal routine - as if they came back from work every day and fell onto the couch together.

Eventually, their cups ran dry and the tv movie out of minutes. Bucky got up stiffly, stretching his legs and his back.

“I should get going,” he said, putting his shoes back on that he’d kicked off when he;d come in. 

“Of course.”

“Thanks for today,” Bucky said eventually, when he already had his coat slung over his shoulders. “I know it was a gamble coming to your work. It was nice. Thanks for giving me a chance to skate again.”

“No, thank you.” Steve felt his cheeks heat up at the confirmation that he had wanted to be there. “It was my pleasure.”

They stood there awkwardly for a second, Bucky ready to leave with his coat on in the doorway and Steve just standing there.

If anything, Steve wanted nothing more but to pull him close and kiss him. Feel his lips against his, warm them up before going into the cold outdoors. Instead, he coughed and stepped back.

“Be safe on your way home, the roads are dangerous when it freezes.”

“Yes, Mom.” An almost disappointed smile crossed Bucky’s lips. For a second, it was as if he too wanted to step closer, do something. Instead, he turned around stepped out and pulled the door closed behind him.

“You stupid,” Steve mumbled under his breath to the now empty room. This had been the perfect chance, the perfect day. Perfect moment and he’d ruined it. 

Forgoing the dishes still in the sink and the mess on the couch, he turned the lights off and went straight to bed, suddenly worn, his hip aching.

❤❤❤

##  **April**

Spring announced itself with warmer weather and the gradual disappearance of Peggy’s tights. She confidently walked around in bare legs, even if it wasn’t quite that warm. 

“They’ve been trapped in jeans and tights for too long,” she exclaimed when he’d first seen her pale legs again. “I’m so glad to be able to take them out again.” It was barely warm enough, but compared to the previous months, it was heaven. No more freezing, no more snow, no more crawling in bed the second he got home to lay under the duvet.

“I’m happy for you?” he asked her, unsure if that was the response she was looking for. “Aren’t your legs freezing?”

“Not really,” she shrugged, pulling her scarf just a little tighter around her. “Besides, I’m dressed warm enough.” 

They were walking through Brooklyn Park, the same place that the skating rink had been just two months ago. Ever since, Bucky and he sort of fell into a routine. The day after their date, Bucky had called to see how he was doing, if his hip was still troubling him. Steve had lied and told him it wasn’t, even though there was a bruise to show for his collision with the ice.

It had become a regular thing, where once a week they’d call and talk, sometimes for hours on end. Sometimes to the point that one of them fell asleep on the other side of the line. As much as Steve hated it when Bucky fell asleep on him, he loved hearing the gentle snores come in through the phone. They talked more and hung out more outside of the calls too.

“So, how’s love going?” Steve asked Peggy, a slight bump to her shoulder. She had mentioned liking a girl a while ago and then suspiciously, he hadn’t heard anything else about the mysterious girl with brown curly hair and blue eyes.

“Actually,”she said, beaming, “it’s going quite swell. Thank you.” She had a glow about her, made her seem happy. “We have a date tonight. She’s taking me to the movies and we’re going out for dinner afterwards.” _ Like a real life couple. _ Steve could only dream of it. Lord knew he was dreaming about it.

“How did you get to asking her out?” he asked, innocently. He stared at the cup of coffee in his hands, half empty now. They had been walking for a little while now, from the café where she worked to her apartment. “How did you know she was on your team?”

“We met in a gay bar,” she said, shrugging. “It was kind of clear.”

“Straight people go to those to, Pegs.”

“Well, they don’t start chatting up girls.” She looked him up and down. “What’s this really about?”

“I think I love Bucky.” It was still odd to say the words out loud. He’d only told himself in front of the mirror, making him come to terms with the truth. Bucky was a good friend, but Steve wanted more out of it. 

“I see,” Peggy mused, “why don’t you ask him out?”

“We’re friends,” he shrugged, “what if I lose him? What if he doesn’t want anything else to do with me?” 

It was a thought that had circled through his mind a lot the past few weeks. What if he lost a good friend. They’d grown closer and just being around him was nice, good. Steve didn’t know what he would do if he didn’t have that in his life. He’d gotten used to Bucky’s presence, the calls, everything.

“Then he’s a lousy person who doesn’t deserve to be in your life anyway,” Peggy says harshly. “Besides, I don’t think you need to worry about that. I think he likes you.”

“You don’t even know if he’s gay.”

“I know that he likes being around you,” she shrugged. “Hell, I even know you fell asleep on the phone the other week and he listened to you snore for five minutes before hanging up the phone.” She sighed. “Take the plunge. You’re only going to have so much time for other opportunities come up and life brings you away from each other. You’re graduating soon, what will happen then? Do you really want him to be your _ what if _ for the rest of your life?”

“No, I don’t.” That he did know. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life doubting and thinking that Bucky was the one who got away. He knew that much for sure, like he knew that water put out fire.

“Then why not try. Ask him.”

“We’re going out next week,” Steve admitted. “There’s a play some of his friends wanted to go to, but they sold the tickets to him so he could go. He didn’t know who else to ask, so he asked me.“

“That sounds like a date to me,” Peggy said, amused. “Which one are you going to?”

“Angels in America.”

“Steve, he’s taking you to a play about out and closeted gay men,” she answered, looking very much like she was done with him. “Have you ever met a straight man who wanted to go see that with another straight man without other ulterior motives?”

“I guess not,” he sighed, the coffee cup now empty in his hands. Bucky had sounded casual when he’d shown up to his doorstep one day with the tickets and the question if he wanted to go with him. It had been barely nine in the morning, the excitement clear in Bucky’s face. _ “I’m not usually a theatre man,” _ he’d said to Steve, _ “but my friends have been raving about this one. I thought it might be nice to go and I don’t know who else could ever want to go with me.” _

“Be brave,” she simply told him. “Life isn’t going to wait for you to catch on. One day it might be too late. Regardless of how much you love him.”

“You’re right.”

❅❅❅

Peggy wasn’t sprawled on his bed this time. She wasn’t there to help him pick out what to wear. Even if she were, he didn’t know if she could tell him what was okay to wear to the theatre.

He’d never been able to go. As a kid, because it was too expensive and with a short attention span, he wouldn’t have been able to get anything out of it even if he tried. Afterwards it had never really popped into his head to actually go. He didn’t know why that was.

Bucky had said that he didn’t necessarily love it either, but that he was excited. It _ had _to mean that at the very least one of them would be interested and enjoy it, even if Steve didn’t. 

He smoothed down the white button down again. It had been the most formal thing he could find. If he paired it with the suit pants that he only wore to oral exams, it made him look somewhat important, somewhat formal.

The ringing of the doorbell pulled him out of his thoughts and into a new stumble of panic.

_ Bucky was here. _

Ever since Peggy had told him that to her, it sounded like a date, he’d not been able to get the thought out of his head. Maybe he was just so oblivious, maybe he couldn’t see through Bucky’s intentions.

The loop of worry and doubt had kept going and going and going. To the point that even his co-workers had asked him if he had a date coming up. Begrudgingly, he had told them the truth, flawlessly switching out the man for a woman. They’d told him good luck and that it was cute that he was so worried about it. He’d let them run with it.

Steve knew for a fact that the second they’d hear it was a guy that he wanted to see, it wouldn’t be cute and nice. He knew that the chance was more than real that they would kick him out and let him off. They would be creative and tell him that they could figure things out by themselves and needed to cut back financially. But he’d know the reason why.

When the bell rang a second time, Steve finally got his legs moving. He opened the door to a grinning Bucky, standing there in nice trousers and a similar shirt to Steve. He had a leather jacket thrown over the top of it, setting it all off just a little bit.

He’d been surprised when with the heating up of the weather, more of Bucky’s personal style came through. Instead of all hiding sweaters and thick coats with scarves, he wore finer fabric, casual pieces. The leather jacket was ever present. Regardless of where they went.

“Sorry if I’m early,” Bucky shrugged as Steve closed behind him. “A friend just dropped me off, so I figured I might as well come straight here.” Steve found his eyes distracted by the outline of his muscles against the shirt. Another perk of the weather heating up. Slowly, more of Bucky’s body was revealed to him. He couldn’t say he was complaining. “I’m not that early, am I?” Bucky was looking at the unbuttoned top buttons of his shirt, his unruly and untamed hair.

“Not at all, it’s okay,” Steve offered. “Grab something to drink if you want anything, I’ll be right there. I’m running a bit late if anything, I’m sorry. Where are you coming from?”

“I was taking pictures with a friend,” he said from the kitchen, “we’re having to do a project in groups again.”

“How was it?”Steve focussed extra hard on pushing the tiny buttons through the tiny holes, trying his hardest and failing to put them through time and time again. 

“Could have been worse, could have been better. I had better prospects for my evening though.” He smiled at Steve, who was now fixing his hair in the big mirror. “Like a play.”

“Well, I’m glad. We can go as far as I’m concerned.”

“Let’s.”

Sitting in a car with Bucky was weird. Even though Steve had his licence, he didn’t own a car and neither did Bucky. Something about the dynamics changed the second they were in the car, Bucky focussing on the road ahead of him.

It meant Steve could look at him and just stare, without him noticing. There was music playing in the background, but he was barely aware of it. The only thing he had an eye for was Bucky.

“You’re staring,” Bucky said amused, when they stopped at a red light. “Do I have something on my face?”

“No, sorry,” he said, “I just go into a stare mode when I’m in the car and not driving. It wasn’t at you.”

“I’m just teasing you,” Bucky laughed. “It’s all good. Do you know what the play is about?”

“Peggy filled me in,” he admitted. “I was talking to her about it the other day. She was asking if I had plans this week.” He was over-explaining things and he knew it very well. Once he’d started talking he couldn’t get himself to stop.

“You’re okay with it?”

“Of course,” Steve said. He didn’t know how it could not be to him. Yet he knew the underlying message in it - it was almost as if Bucky was asking him if gay was okay. “I don’t see anything to have a problem with.” He knew that this was an opening to him, that he could mention it to Bucky. He could talk about it.

And he couldn’t.

They came back around eleven pm, exhausted but buzzing after the play. The time spent on the trains coming back, Steve hadn’t been able to stop talking about it. It amused Bucky, it was easy for him to see. Truth was, he loved it.

“Why don’t you come in?” Steve asked him, “even just for a little bit?”

“I’d love to,” Bucky said and accompanied him up the too many flights of stairs to his door, where he fumbled with the keys in the darkness. 

Steve didn’t quite know how it happened, or what, but something in his brain switched. He walked up to Bucky, stepped in and kissed him, soft and gentle on his lips. Lips that were soft against his.

To his surprise, Bucky kissed back. He stepped closer and put his hand on Steve’s cheek. 

“I’ve wanted to do that for such a long time.” Steve blurted out, all too aware of how hot his cheeks were feeling and that he was blushing admitting the words. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted that, too.” He hadn’t been sure if he’d even been into guys. If he’d been interested in him in that way.

“Me too.” Bucky on the other hand had a smile on his lips as he leaned in for a second kiss, more passionate than the first. “Since the first time we hung out.”

“Me too.” He realised that he was echoing what Bucky had said, but he didn’t even care. They broke apart of just long enough to actually step into the studio and close the door behind them. To hide for the other inhabitants. 

He didn’t want this feeling, this happiness that bloomed in his chest like a sun rising, to be taken away by crude comments of people who didn’t know anything of what was actually going on in their hearts.

They just laid down on the bed for a long time, talking. Looking at each other straight in the eye as they talked about fears things that happened over the last few years that had turned them into the people they were today.

“I talked to my mother the other day,” Bucky told him softly. Somehow, it was easy to talk. It was easy when there seemed to be no walls between them. “She called me. She wants to see me, in real life. To talk.”

“Do you want to meet her again?”

“Maybe.” Bucky played with the strings of the hoodie that Steve had changed into. “I don’t know. Last time we all talked, it, well, it didn’t end well.”

“How did she seem on the phone?”

“She seemed nervous,” he admitted. “She sounded different. Maybe I should. Let’s see what she has to say. I told her that I could maybe meet her Monday, at a café.”

“She might have changed her mind,” Steve offered up, knowing that it might not be a thing at all. Yet at the same time, if she had, it meant that Bucky got one of his parents back. “Neutral ground.”

“Yeah. It was always my dad who riled her up,” he shrugged. “Maybe something happened between them that finally caused a break. I don’t know.” Maybe Bucky’s mother had gotten smart and realised that there was absolutely nothing wrong with being gay, with being lesbian, bi. Nothing at all with falling for people who aren’t just the opposite gender.

Steve scooted closer and laid one hand against his cheek. “It’s gonna be okay you know. Regardless of if she’s okay with it or not. You don’t need her approval.”

“I don’t.” Bucky leaned in and kissed Steve, a gentle kiss that he couldn’t help but lean in to, to his soft lips. His hands roamed the sliver of naked skin where his shirt had ridden up, happy to get to feel his skin under his fingers. 

Bucky sighed happily at the touch. It made a grin spread across Steve’s lips, made him smile into the kiss.

“You like it,” he teased gently.

“Your hands feel nice,” Bucky answered, hiding his face in protest.

“It’s cute.” Steve moved his face so he could see him, kiss him again. Bucky moved his hands under the hem of Steve’s shirt, running back and forth with his fingers, nails scratching ever so slightly. 

“You like it too,” Bucky said with a smile on his lips, before kissing him deeper, his tongue licking against Steve’s lips. Steve slipped his hands further under the shirt, letting them explore the for now unfamiliar landscape of Bucky’s back.

Bucky’s hands started roaming too, going up his sides and to his chest, resting in the middle of it as if they’d found their home there.

They kissed more hungrily, passionately, only breaking their kiss to take off their shirts and for Bucky to move on top of Steve, straddling his hips. Being chest to chest, skin to skin, felt so nice to Steve that he had to pull Bucky down into another kiss. 

Bucky kiss down his neck to his chest, to his nipples, down his belly to the line where his boxers peeked over his jeans and then back up again, each kiss making Steve feel like he was on fire. 

Bucky’s fingers quickly made work of the buckle of his jeans, sliding them off until his hips so he could continue his warpath of kisses: down his hip, his legs and finally, just the softest, gentlest kiss at his dick.

He wanted him.

“My turn,” he breathed, pushing Bucky away and on his back. For a moment, he allowed himself to just look at him and take it all in. Steve didn’t even know when he’d unbuckled his, but he slid Bucky’s jeans smoothly off of him before throwing his own to the foot of the bed.

Kissing and exploring Bucky was something he’d wanted to do for so long, something he thought about as he touched himself late at night. His imagination hadn’t done his actual body any justice. He was beautiful, gorgeous. Steve kissed along his chest, all the way down to his underwear.

“So gorgeous,” he kissed into Bucky’s inner thigh, his finger trailing a line down his dick. He loved seeing how hard Bucky was, how he was writing under his touch. “I’m gonna make you feel so good.”

Steve took off Bucky’s boxers and wasted no time kissing the tip of his dick, tongue dancing around teasingly. The soft moan that came from Bucky’s mouth just made him want to fuck him even more, made him want to turn him over and make him forget his own name.

But this would do, for now. Build up the excitement and tension for another time. He moved up, to kiss Bucky as he stroked his cock, until Bucky was just breathing into his mouth and moaning, until he came in a breathless, quiet second, and covered his hand in come.

Just to spite him, he licked it off his fingers before giving him another kiss.

“So beautiful,” Steve sighed against his lips.

After that, it was Bucky’s turn to pin Steve down. To tease and kiss him until he was writhing, moving against him. Once Bucky took his dick into his mouth, it was game over for Steve. Within minutes he was coming, Bucky’s hand working him hard and fast when he noticed just how close he was. Just how much he wanted to come.

They both lay there, breathing heavily, Bucky splayed across his chest, eyes closed. They didn’t even notice when they fell asleep.

❅❅❅

Steve didn’t know how it had happened that he was here, walking with Bucky to the café where he’d meet his mother. He wouldn’t go sit with them, or mae the already awkward conversation probably even more awkward. But he’d be there, a couple of tables over, drinking a cup of coffee and working on some school work that he’d let pile up over the last couple of weeks. 

In many ways, it was the perfect arrangement. He wanted Bucky to be as comfortable as possible and feel as safe as was possible. If things went south, all he would have to do was make eye contact and he’d come up and save him. They could walk home together and talk about it. Talk through it.

“You’re going to do great,” Steve said encouragingly when they stopped in front of the cafe, taking his hand in his. He squeezed it gently. “I’ll be right there, tell me if there’s anything at all.”

“Thank you, again.”

“Of course. I know it’s not easy.” He didn’t, not really. In a lot of ways, he’d lost all resemblance of family years ago. He didn’t have these conversations with them. There were no chances of rekindling with ghosts. “But you can do it.”

“I’m gonna go in,” Bucky sighed. 

“Be right there behind you.”

The cafe was calm, all in all. Bucky spotted his mother quickly. As he sat down, Steve picked a table not too far away from him. Far enough for there to be privacy and him to not hear, yet close enough to keep an eye on him.

Steve didn’t know what he’d expected his mother to look like. He couldn’t see much resemblance between the two. Her hair was a light brown, falling in soft curls to her shoulders. Her eyes had the same gentle look that Bucky’s did, but the face was different, rounder, softer.

He tried to focus on his schoolwork and the essay he was trying to plan, but he kept getting distracted by their conversation. Bucky seemed to relax slightly over the course of the conversation, but the tension was still so clear in his posture that it worried Steve.

When they both got up, Steve followed their example, packing his books away in his backpack and following them out the door. He walked on in the direction they’d be walking back, waiting after a couple of meters out of sight for Bucky to walk past.

“How did it go?” he asked as he joined him again. He was cautious, trying to figure out what was going on in his brain. Bucky seemed distracted like his mind was telling him a thousand things at once and he had no clue what to do about any of them.

“They broke up,” he said, almost stunned. “My parents. She said she didn’t want to be with him once she realised the kinds of lies he’d been selling her. He was fucking another woman behind her back, made up stories about me.” He shook his head. “She says that she doesn’t care who I am, what I want to do in life. That I love who I love and that’s okay with her. I don’t know. I don’t know if Itrust her but. Yeah.”

Steve hadn’t even dreamt that that would be the outcome of the conversation. That it could mean that his mother indeed saw her mistakes. 

“Let’s celebrate,” he said with a smile on his lips. “I still have a couple of beers ready to go.”

“Sounds great. God knows I could use one.”


	2. PART TWO

_ he’s a hero, and he doesn’t deserve this, _

_ but we all know how this story ends _

_ and even if you rip out the last page _

_ it doesn’t stop the story from ending. _

##  **September**

It was a warm and quiet September morning. With the windows closed and the curtains drawn, Steve could almost imagine that they were in a cabin in France or Italy woken up by the sun. He could almost imagine that this was the year that they finally managed to get away for their anniversary.

Almost.

It was still their own bed, their own sheets, their own apartment. _ His _own Bucky. He was grateful for the warm body still asleep next to him, the steady rising and falling of his chest.

It was early still, barely six am, but he couldn’t go back to sleep. Weeks and weeks of getting up before the sun properly rose, had meant that his body was used to rising and getting up. He’d made sure to turn all the clocks in the house - both the ones on their nightstands and the back-up ones in the kitchen - off, so that nothing could wake them up before they decided it was time.

The alarm clock in his brain wasn’t as easy to turn off. 

It was okay however. Steve was content laying there, looking at his fiancé in the dim morning light and take in all of his features. His nose, his lips, his eyes still firmly closed, the relaxed expression on his face. Just like he’d done that very first time he’d seen him.

He wished he had his camera with him, so he could take a picture, remember him just like this - forever. When they’ll be old and grey and have a small house to themselves, lines etched in their faces and with loose and lived in skin, they’ll be able to look at the picture and see. See how Bucky used to be.

In his mind, he’s taking everything in. Taking pictures and pictures, stored away in his memory, to never forget.

It’s just after seven when Bucky’s phone pulls them out of their slumber. Steve had dozed off again, his hand cupping Bucky’s face and barely registered it when it started ringing. Only when Bucky turned to grab the phone did he open his eyes, slowly waking up to the world around them.

“No, of course, I understand,” Bucky answered, sleep still clear in his voice. “I’ll be there soon.”

“Work?” Steve asked when the phone was back on the nightstand, Bucky turned towards him. He’d thought it might happen. Both of them had taken days off, but without the leverage of ‘_ I’m sorry, but it my wife and I’s anniversary _’, usually, not a lot helped keep the days off.

“I’m sorry.” Bucky pressed a kiss to the top of his nose, his exposed cheek, his lips. “I promise I’ll be here as soon as I can. They found someone else for the afternoon, maybe you could pick me up and we could have lunch together?”

“Not your fault.” The offer sounded nice to Steve. It would just be him and Bucky and they could still spend a big chunk of the day together. He mourned the loss of their perfect day, but he could settle. “And that would work - it would be nice.”

Bucky made motion to get up, but Steve pulled him close again. There was an unease in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t know where it came from, didn’t know why it was there. All he knew was that he wanted to hold his partner close for just a moment longer.

“I’ll be back soon,” Bucky promised, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “Gonna take a quick shower.”

Steve walked back home from the bakery, lost in thoughts. There had been a note on the pillow next to him, just a couple of words. Saying that he’s sorry for having to leave so soon. That he would get back home as soon as he could. That he couldn’t wait to have a nice evening with him and celebrate their anniversary.

With Bucky going to work, his plans had changed. Instead of having a relaxed breakfast in bed and a relaxing afternoon, they’d have to grab dinner in town, share a bottle of wine on the couch before falling asleep early. 

At least he’d get to lay on the couch, with Bucky’s head on his lap and play with his hair. He’d get a chance to look at his partner and revel in the fact that maybe, possibly, he was looking at the sleeping form of his fiancé.

Maybe, maybe.

He’d wanted to ask him during a walk through the park, find a quiet and hidden spot and pop the question. Just thinking about it made butterflies dance around in his stomach, made him go wobbly in the knees.

At least it was warm outside and he had a bag of warm croissants and pastries. Breakfast might have come and gone, but it didn’t have to mean that they couldn’t have a brunch. Steve could try and cook up something nice for when Bucky would eventually come home. His favorite.

He looked up at the sky, let the warmth soak in his skin. God, it was nice. After the couple cold days, both Bucky and he had given up on the last warmth of summer. He knew very well that it might very well still warm up late September, that some of the residual warmth might come and warm up their frozen fingers at toes.

He closed his eyes for a second, letting it all sink in.

That’s when he heard it. The busy noises of people talking through each other, the quiet rumble on the ground. The sounds of people running, fleeing. Escaping. It was like a thunder coming closer and closer and closer, crashing.

Escaping what?

“A plane just hit the tower!” People ran, ran, ran. Out of the street, past Steve in a flurry or limbs and smoke. “Run.” _ It’s on fire. _

For a second, his brain froze. He didn’t take anything in, didn’t listen to the voices, didn’t look at the faces flashing past. Didn’t see the blood or the bruises, the flutters of paper as they drifted through the sky.

And then he was running, brain comprehending. Feet carrying him back home. Home to the telephone, home to Bucky.

His heart was racing. The steps up to the apartment seemed to stretch miles and miles and miles, his feet carried him slow, slow, slow. He was almost expecting Bucky to be there, dirty but alive, happy. He was almost expecting Bucky to crash into his arms, for Steve to hold him and not let go. Not ever.

He fumbled with the key, tried over and over again to get it in the lock, to get it moving, _ done _. The door opened only a crack, but already he could tell the silence in the place. Like an announcement waiting for him inside the walls. 

The sun still shone in through the windows, it looked exactly the same as it did when he’d left it, when Bucky had left him. He didn’t drop his coat off by the door as he usually did. Bucky wasn’t following him inside, as he usually did.

There was a red light blinking on the answering machine. It usually didn’t.

His fingers trembled as he pressed the button. He didn’t know if he even wanted to hear the messages. 

“_ You have two new messages. Message one.” _Steve sat down then got up again as he waited for the robotic voice to finish her banter. It was not what he wanted to hear. He didn’t want a robot talking to him. He wanted Bucky.

And then, in just one sound, he didn’t want it to be Bucky.

He heard the rumble in the background, the sounds of screams like a horror movie. One with fake blood and people running, away from the murderer. Away, trying to protect himself. Except that this time, the murderer was a plane.

“I love you.” Bucky’s voice sounded strained, hurt. He heard the tears in his eyes, could almost hear all that he was trying not to say. How scared he had to be, how he didn’t know what was happening. All of that, he heard in three simple words. Three simple words until there was a loud crash, a shattering of glass. “I’ll be home soon-”

There was a loud click as the line broke, more sounds of glass breaking and people screaming. In an almost heartless, careless way the automatic recording returned, asking him if he wanted to dial the number back. It almost made his skin crawl, just the thought of it.

Fuck, he wanted to, his fingers aching to pick up the receiver and hear the phone ring and ring and ring. Wanted for Bucky to pick up and tell him that they were fine, that they were just leaving. That he’d be home soon.

God, how much he wanted him to walk through the door now.

“Second message,” the robot droned on, insensitive to the tears running down his cheeks, his hitching breaths, the worry that inhibited every inch of his skin, every drop of his blood. 

“Steve, Bucky? Hello?” Peggy’s shrill voice cut through the silence. It was there in her voice too, the worry. “Are you guys working today? I tried calling your work phones but you wouldn’t pick up. Please call me back the second you hear this message.”

Slowly, the hitching stopped, replaced by nothing but a sense of urgency. He ran out the door, almost forgetting to lock it behind him. Past the groups of people, now wounded and bruises, grey from the debris falling down from the building.

Past the hordes of people standing in the streets, dumbfounded, looking at the twin towers, looking at how they were going up into flame. Looking at the smoke billowing from them like two lit cigarettes, waiting to return to ashes, waiting to crumble.

_ A second plane hit the buildings. _ The message was clear: you could read it in the faces of people, the despair. Could hear it in the shouts of the people around him, talking loudly in their huddled circles, like penguins keeping each other warm.

Nothing could keep Steve warm after this news. Nothing could keep him from running through the masses, fighting past policemen trying to keep him from the street. Roadblocks were being set up everywhere, buildings evacuated.

“Sir, you cannot go there.” A strong hand landed on his shoulder, coming seemingly out of nowhere. Steve had been so focussed on the ground, on not looking up. He’d heard the words, of seeing people jump from the top floors, knowing that their end was coming soon. People who knew that they would only speed up the process. “Sir stop. Go back home and wait for news, please.”

“My husband is there.” He’d never spoken the words out loud to a stranger. He’d never had the guts to be open and proud. Now, he was open and scared and fragile, ripping at the seams. “Please, I need to go find him, he’s in there. He was working, he wasn’t supposed to be, please.” The words left his mouth like a waterfall, he barely stopped to take a breath, to pause. Nothing.

“We can’t let anyone in,” Officer Wilson - Steve had looked at his jacket as he begged his life away - told him again, firm but gentle. “If he was in his office, they’ll find him. They’ll bring him home. The best you can do for your husband is go home.” His brown eyes looked straight into his. “What’s his name?”

“James Buchanan Barnes.”

“They’re looking for James,” he promised him again, “go home, stay safe. You don’t want him to come home to an empty house and a dead husband because you went looking for him. It’s dangerous out there.” A gentle squeeze on his shoulder, a push in the right direction. It was all that was needed to break Steve’s spirits.

Slowly, the crying turned to numbness. To a complete and utter feeling of not belonging on this space and earth. As he walked the streets back home, back into the apartment, the tears he’d given up on preventing a long time ago dried up. Replaced by a staring gaze and his eyes fixed on the road. On the people walking.

His mother-in-law and Peggy - both were worried, but happy he was safe. They were scared and praying. Winnifred was crying, he could hear it in her voice so clearly.

If his heart could break again, it would have. It was shattered, desperately glued together by hope and foolish dreams. He was still waiting for that call, for an officer to tell him he’d been taken to hospital.

He didn’t care if he got Bucky back with one arm. If he had issues. He didn’t care. He just wanted him back.

❅❅❅

Steve spent the night on the couch, huddled up under a blanket too thin to keep the morning chill out. He stared at the ceiling, at the clock in the corner. One am turned to two, turned to three. He saw each of them tick by slowly, slowly, as if months had passed.

They’d given up on looking the day before and were bringing in reinforcements. They’d start clearing the rubble and dig people out of their stone prisons. They’d also dig out bodies. Faintly, in the background, the radio was playing.

Newsflash after newsflash after newsflash. Until the news turned old and he couldn;t listen to the voices anymore. Until they turned into background music that he refused to listen to.

He knew they were there, but they faded away.

In the complete and utter silence, the telephone cut through violently, like nails on a chalkboard. Steve had finally started dozing off, his mind escaping in t a dreamscape where nothing was coming in. His heart wasn’t aching, his eyes weren’t sore from the crying, his brain wasn’t tired.

The phone woke him up from that place, and it was almost like it fell back on him.

“They called.” For a second, Steve didn’t recognise Winnifred through her sobs. He didn’t need to hear more. Didn’t want to know the rest of the words that would come out of her mouth. They’d found him. They’d found Bucky. “He’s gone, Steve. My baby boy is gone.”

❅❅❅

Peggy was at his apartment within seven minutes. Steve barely remembered calling her before he fell on the couch and cried. Cried, cried, cried until his eyes felt so raw they hurt and his lungs ached from the lack of oxygen. Cried until he thought that he’d used up all the water in his body. Cried until his head ached. 

“What did they say?” she asked quietly. It was the first time that he’d seen his best friend in such a state of disarray. He was sure Peggy was still wearing her sleepshirt with her skirt, she had no make up on and her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. 

“I don’t know.” His voice sounded foreign to his own ears, croaky, strange. Like a robot learning to speak and getting the tone wrong. “They called Winnifred, his mom. She called me. She just said he was gone.”

“I’m so sorry Steve.”

“I was gonna ask him to marry me. Yesterday. Our anniversary.” He rubbed his eyes, willing the tears that were threatening to go away. “How stupid. How fucked.”

“It’s not stupid. It’s sweet.” She was quiet for a moment, just stared into the distance. “He would have said yes, you know.”

“I hope so.” 

As much as it was good to have someone there, and someone with him. He wanted to be alone. Maybe he needed to be. He could feel the wall he was putting up with Peggy there. He was pretending to be okay. Pretending that everything was okay. Pretending he was better off than he actually was. It was exhausting. Exhausting just to talk about Bucky, or anything at all.

Peggy understood. She just up and pulled her shoes back on, went to the door.

“Hang in there okay,” she said quietly. “I’ll call later?”

“Okay.” He couldn’t say anything else but okay. Asking her not too felt too direct almost. As if he was letting her in on the secret that actually, he didn’t want her to check in, or call, or hear her voice. Didn’t want to tell her that every time the phone rang, he still expected it to be Bucky. That there had been a mistake.

Yet, there wasn’t one. No mistakes, just one of life’s cruel jokes.

❅❅❅

Steve stood in front of the wardrobe, just looking at the clothes hanging there. Just looking at the clothes hanging in a neat row: Bucky’s favorite sweaters, the completely worn down jeans he’d never been able to get rid of. The dark t-shirts that always became the staple of his wardrobe because they were so easy to wear to work with a casual blazer on top of them.

God, he remembered how handsome Bucky looked in them. How much seeing him in his work get up for the very first time had made him want to tear the clothes off of him and take him to bed.

It made him remember how proud he was of him when he landed that job and then quickly moved through the ranks, when it became clear he’d need the nicer, more dressed up clothing.

_ He wouldn’t wear them again. _

It took everything Steve had not to go back to the couch and lay down, let the tide wash over him and pull him down. He had a mission today. Today, he had to get ready and go and stand at his partner's funeral, shake hands of people who didn’t know Bucky.

He’d get to meet Bucky’s father, a stoic man who hadn’t had any relationship to him in years. Who after his mother came back and apologised for all the words she’d said, stayed silent.

He’d stand in line with him and he’d be there. Winnifred had let him know that he wanted to come say goodbye to his son. That he too had been affected badly. That even if he hadn’t seen him in years, it hurt him to know that he would say goodbye to him on such bad terms. 

Steve couldn’t say he was excited to meet him. He still was, at the end of the day, the same person who had pushed him away and thought his son would go to hell and was an unnatural creature just because he was born loving men.

He forced himself to take out a suit and clean shirt. Forced himself to mechanically put them on and not look at the clothes anymore, or the reminders around the house of Bucky’s presence. He couldn’t get tangled up in those feelings when he knew that in a few hours, he’d have nothing but that. Nothing but people talking as if they knew Bucky oh so well because they’d been in class with him or shared friends.

The car drove off towards the funeral parlor. The taxi driver had looked at him funny when he gave him the address and told him that it was a funeral home, so to look out for those. But he guessed, after all this time and the days of funerals, it wasn’t such a weird concept. Every day, people in the city got dressed up to go to a funeral for one of the people who were killed during the attack.

The driver didn’t try to make conversation and for a moment, Steve couldn’t be anything but glad about it. It meant he could stare in the distance and think nothing. Bucky didn’t have to haunt his every thought quite yet. That would happen the second he got out of the car and walked in. The second he’d see Winnifred there.

Except, Bucky was always on his mind. He was there when he opened his eyes in the morning and stared at the ceiling. He was there when Steve tried to take a shower and knew that the last person to ever take a shower there had been Bucky. When he saw the products he used. When he saw his razor out on the bathroom counter, ready to be used again.

Except they wouldn’t be used again. Steve couldn’t bare the thought of using something that Bucky used for the very last time. It was why the mug he’d used to drink coffee out of hadn’t been washed, why the clothes in the laundry basket hadn’t been touched, why he wouldn’t touch his cologne except for to open it up and smell it.

It smelled like him. It was the scent that he associated most with his almost husband.

Except for some reason, the only thing he had was his coat. The long black coat that he hadn’t wanted to put on that day. He’d promised that he would stay warm enough wearing something shorter and that he would be right back anyway.

He’d put it on, coating himself in the scent of him. For a moment, as dumb as it might seem, it felt like he was there with him. Holding his hand and promising that it would all be okay. It would all be okay and he would survive the day. He could go home and go sleep soon enough.

It was that that Steve already looked forward to, even if it was still early in the morning. Even if he hadn’t been awake for that much time.

Steve put his hands in the pocket of the coat.

It was then that he felt them there. His keys to the apartment and his wallet, still tucked away in the deep pockets. In the other, further down in the pocket than he thought he could go, a box.

His heart stopped beating for a second. He was almost scared to take it out, open it up, see it. He didn’t know what to expect from it. Didn’t know what his present to him would be this anniversary.

Ignoring the cab driver, he pulled out the black velvet box and opened it up. It wasn’t what he thought it would be. For a second, he’d been afraid that Bucky too wanted to propose to him, that there would be a ring hidden in the fabric.

There was a locket. It was simple, round locket with a rose carved into the top half. With shaking fingers, he opened it up. Next to an old picture of his parents and him, sitting on the bottom of the stairs one christmas morning, was a picture of them, smiling.

He remembered when the picture was taken as if it were yesterday. Bucky’s graduation from university, a cap on his head and Steve standing next to him, a smile on his face. He was looking at Bucky and Bucky was looking at him and just in that moment, no one couldn’t have known what was between them. No one could deny they had chemistry together. That they just _ worked _. 

He put the locket around his neck, safely hidden under his shirt. This was his. His token of Bucky. No one could ever take that away from him.

The funeral seemed to last days, weeks, months. It was in it’s own private universe, where Steve didn’t need to talk to Bucky’s dad because the man actively avoided being anywhere near him. Peggy was there, as well as their friends from college. While most of them knew, after the years, most didn’t know they were still together, that they were still dating. 

He heard the words _ I’m so sorry for you loss _ more times than he could count.

He wished he could say that they made him feel like he was not alone. He wished that he could say that they made him feel any better. Somehow, they did the opposite. They made it feel like he was all alone with the feelings, like it was his loss and no one would ever understand the things that he was going through.

And they couldn’t, wouldn’t. Because it wasn’t their partner who had left for an unexpected day at work and never returned home. Yes, they had lost people. Most people in New York new someone who had died. But they weren’t in his shoes. And even if they were, he didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want their burden on his shoulders too. He had enough carrying his own and trying to stay afloat.

Bucky’s coffin had been a closed one. Winnifred and he had agreed on it together. Bucky’s face was battered and bruised, burned. Neither of them wanted the whole world to see how mutilated and not like himself he looked now, in his final hours.

The talk about cremation versus burial had been a long one. For a moment, he hated that Bucky and he never got to the age to talk about their funeral, where it didn’t seem like a pointless conversation because it would be years and years and years away. It should have been years and years and years away and yet it was today. It was today and Steve wasn’t coping.

Instead of coping he was standing outside of lunch with a cigarette stolen from Peggy. Bucky had always hated it that he sometimes smoked. He didn’t exactly knew why it was. Bucky said that it was the smell that clung to his clothes and got to his nose. He didn’t like it one bit. Now, he wasn’t there to tell him not to or that he hated the smell on his clothes. He could do whatever he wanted.

And people left him alone outside. He’d gone outside to stand apart from the other people with a reason. They left him alone and for a moment he could just be himself. Seeing the coffin being brought in through the church doors was weird, strange. It almost felt like it shouldn’t be Bucky in there. Like it couldn’t be Bucky.

And then, when they put him in the ground, the overwhelming feeling that it _ was _ Bucky. The overwhelming feeling that he’d now lost him forever.

❤❤❤

##  **December**

It seemed like the towers haunted them long after the initial cleaning work ended. Long after the people were taken from the rubble. Dozens of people still missing in action, people whose families had no other option but to assume that they were dead.

It haunted the news for weeks, months. He stopped listening eventually, eyes closed on the couch. He stopped turning on the radio, stopped watching television. He cried and he slept and he ate. He called for take out once a day, until the flow of cash was limited, until his wallet ran dry.

Winnifred had Bucky’s bank account contents deposited to Steve’s. They felt guilty keeping the money that they both worked so hard to save up. They felt like Steve - now jobless and loveless and broken - could use it, to keep him going until his life started again. Until he could finally bare to get off the couch for longer than it took to walk to the door to pick up his food.

They tried to call, tried to come in, but the phone kept ringing and the door shut. Even as the winter season hit New York, he didn’t muster up the energy to get his winter clothes out from the top of the closet. He layered up with the old duvet they used for guests staying over and called it a day. It was warm enough, kept him from freezing during the long nights he stared up at the ceiling, as it had an answer for the hole in his chest and the questions running around his head.

What if he told Bucky not to go into work?

What if he asked Bucky to call in and say that he was sick?

What if they’d never called. What if they had just slept in? They could be engaged by now, planning their non official wedding in their own house. Figure out how to get a wedding cake and the people involved. They would be happy.

Instead, Steve was a stranger in his own home, a guest. Sleeping on the couch like a teen because his bed held too many demons.

Facing the bed was a task he couldn’t face. He never went to sleep there without Bucky. In the years they’d been together, they’d almost always gone to sleep together. They fell asleep curled up, with one person’s head on the other’s chest. He couldn’t face the thought that now, he had to do that without him. That he’d sleep alone in the big bed, meant for two. Meant for Bucky’s warm body pressed against his chest or his back. Meant for cold feet pressing to his leg trying to warm them up in the winter months. Meant for sleeping naked when it was too warm to wear anything or they were too spent and tired after fucking.

He wasn’t living. He wasn’t dying. He was something in-between. A ghost pretending to be human.

They were standing in Bucky’s office, together. Bucky wearing those slim fit pants that made his butt look great and criminal for the office. Steve always bugged him about it. Always told him that he should just come back to bed, that he couldn’t wait to take them off of them.

His white button up was clean, save for a few drops of blood.

Steve wished that it still threw him. That it still shocked him to see him bleeding. That it still shocked him to see him there, walking, talking. That it still made him feel like he never wanted to wake up again.

He knew he was dreaming and maybe, that was worst of all. Not even his dreams could persuade him that Bucky was still alive. Still with him.

“What are you doing?” Bucky said quietly, gently. He had to strain to hear him, to understand the words. 

“Nothing,” he said back, almost equally quiet. It was painful knowing just how much it was the truth. He wasn’t doing anything. He wasn’t doing anything. He just slept and dreamt and ate and forgot the world was a thing to live in. He didn’t want to live in it if Bucky wasn’t by his side. “I’m not doing anything Buck. I miss you.”

He missed him with every fiber of his soul. Every inch of him longed to be back with Bucky. To just spend one more night with him. To spend one more day being together.

“I found your present,” Steve said quietly. “The locket. I always wear it.”

“I knew you were going to propose,” Bucky added, a small smile now stretching across his lips. Steve wished he could be happy for it. Happy that he got to see his partner smile just one more time. “I found the ring. You’re not good at hiding them.”

“I wear that too.” He always had it, together with the locket. They had a home close to his heart, where Bucky would always be. “I don’t go without it.”

“I would have said yes.” Bucky stepped closer to him, the bloodstains fading until they were gone. “Come with me?” 

Steve took his outstretched hand, and they were in the apartment, in their bedroom. The bed was made and the curtains drawn. The clock blinking midnight back to him. “Come sleep with me, one more time?”

“I don’t want to lose you.” A fear gripped his heart. That not even his dreams would give him Bucky anymore, that he’d now forever lose him. Gone away in the throws of his mind. That slowly, he’d forget about him.

“You won’t. On one condition.” Bucky sat down on the bed, now clothed in soft flannel PJs. His favorites, the ones that Steve had gotten for him their first Christmas together. Back at his old studio. He’d fallen in love with them from the get go, had taken to wearing them around the house constantly, until they were worn and comfortable, Loved. “Live.”

“Live?”

“You’re not living Steve.” Steve walked closer to Bucky, sat down on the bed next to him. He too was wearing PJs now, old sweatpants and an old shirt he’d had for longer than he’d known Bucky. Longer than he’d know anyone. “You’re floating. Drifting. You’re just laying there on the couch. Not doing anything. You’re miserable. Hey, look at me.” 

His hands took Steve’s chin, lifted him up so they were eye to eye once again. He pressed a soft kiss against his lips. God, he’d missed those lips. So perfect for his. The perfect piece for the broken, cracked puzzle that was his heart. “I’m not.”

“You are. I want you to live, Steve. Want you to move on. Get out of the house, shower. Talk to people. I want you to be okay.” Bucky spoke the words right against his lips. “I know it’s not easy, but you’re not trying.”

Steve wished he could argue. He wished he could say that he was trying. That he was trying to just get through the day. But was he?

“You’ve given up,” Bucky said, echoing his thoughts. “Please, for me? If you do anything for me, do this. Live. Let people in. Call them back. Pick up the phone. Please?”

“Okay.” How could he deny him that. How could he deny him his final request?

“Fall asleep with me? One more time?”

They snuggled up in the bed together, Steve’s head tucked under Bucky’s chin, arms around each other, legs intertwined. For the first time in months, he felt at peace. For the first time in months, he felt safe and guarded, he felt like he belonged.

❅❅❅

Steve woke up disoriented, on a too small couch in complete darkness, shivering. The blanket had fallen off during the night - or day, Steve was barely aware of the hours as they changed, if it was day or if it was night. He slept when he wanted to, ate when he wanted to, without much regard to what time it was. With the curtains drawn, it was hard to tell when it was.

They hadn’t been opened since the funeral. He’d wanted to shut the world out and make it not be there. Wanted to know nothing of what was going on. Wanted no more information of how many more bodies were found amongst the skeletons of the towers. Wanted to know nothing more of the thousands of people mourning.

His mourning was his. And his alone.

And yet. The conversation with Bucky kept running through his head. A never ending loop of him asking to live for him. To be alive for him. To not give up.

But how could he, when everything felt dark and cold and miserable. How could he be happy when the world wasn’t giving him anything to be happy about?

“I promised I’d try,” he said to himself, to the dark empty room. His voice sounded hoarse, weird. He hadn’t spoken in what could have been days. Hadn’t drank anything since he didn’t know when.

He had to be brave. He had to try.

Steve got up from the couch and wrapped the blanket around his shoulders. For the very first time, he walked to the curtains and pulled them open, sunlight spilling in.


	3. EPILOGUE

_ Being brave isn’t glorifying.  _

_ Being brave is messy.  _

_ Being brave is walking forward when you thought  _

_ you couldn’t even stand.  _

##  **October**

Everything was in boxes. It had felt like it took forever. Going through their stuff had been hard and painful. Steve couldn’t the amount of times that he’d sat there, Peggy sitting cross legged next to him, with tears in his eyes as he picked up something that reminded him of Bucky. Something that they’d bought together in the early days of living together. She had to coax him into letting go of things that wouldn’t matter - had helped him let go of some of the final things he’d kept out of Bucky’s wardrobe. 

One of the first things he’d done, after the dream had been clean up the apartment, take a shower, call Peggy. She’d been surprised to hear his voice, sure that he didn’t want to have anything to do with anyone anymore. She’d been right. He hadn’t wanted to. He didn’t want to meet anyone who reminded him of Bucky, who reminded him that life could go on without him there.

Yet, Peggy was the first person he had to call. They ordered pizza and watch a movie on the couch of her house and laughed. For the first time in months he laughed. Laughed until he cried and then just cried. Cried for the loss and the sadness and the grief, all bundled up inside of him ready to explode.

She’d held him and told him that it would be okay.

Bucky never disappeared. He didn’t when Steve finally tackled the wardrobe and boxed up everything he could. He didn’t go away when he drove to goodwill to donate. He didn’t go away when he finally slept in their bed for the very first time.

He was always there with a special place in his heart. 

Slowly but surely, he’d healed. Found a job. Got out of the house again, had his hair cut, shaved his ever growing beard. He started making a life for himself again, apologised to friends for ignoring them. He called Winnifred to see how they were dealing.

He let Peggy in again. From meeting once a week to blow of steam and have fun, to spending evenings together, watching movies and going for drinks. They talked and talked and talked. Talked about Bucky, but more often than not about life, about work, about chances.

Slowly but surely, he fell in love with her brilliant smile and her witty answers. Fell in low with how much she couldn’t be bullshitted. Fell in love with her patience and care. Loving hurt. It hurt to know that he was now feeling the same things he did for Bucky, with Peggy.

But Bucky had made him promise. He would move on.

Moving on meant he might fall in love with someone new. She would never be Bucky. She’d never have that same special place in his heart as his first serious, long term,  _ I want to marry you one day  _ partner did. But she loved him, won him over.

Their first kiss was awkward and weird and it should’ve felt wrong on so many levels, but it wasn’t. It was just him and her and her soft hands around his waist.

He knew the question in people’s eyes. He knew what they were thinking. She wasn’t just a rebound. She wasn’t a way to forget about Bucky. She was his. She was her own. She stood by herself. A whole new entity full of ideas and wisdom.

It was so that it came that they were packing, moving in together. She’d promised him over and over and over again that if he didn’t feel ready, that they didn’t have to. She told him over and over that it didn’t mean that he was closing off Bucky and forgetting about him. That Bucky would always have a place in their lives. 

And he did.

Except, once the last boxes were out and he ran through a final time. He felt it. The peace Bucky had wanted him to get. He locked the door behind him and walked out. Walked out of the painful memories. Onto new ones, onto happiness again.   
  



End file.
